Georgia "mad" to spark Russia clash

By Francois Murphy

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was "mad" to try to crush rebels in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, and he fell into a Russian trap that led to war, a senior French official said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered an outline peace deal on Tuesday and the early hours of Wednesday to end fighting sparked by Saakashvili's decision to launch a military offensive last week in the pro-Russian region of South Ossetia.

"Saakashvili was mad to go and bomb a town in the middle of the night," a senior official in Sarkozy's office told reporters overnight on condition of anonymity.

"He gambled, he lost," the official, who was involved in negotiations on the peace deal, said, adding: "The Georgians fell into a crude trap. They thought that (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin would not retaliate in the middle of the Olympic Games."

But Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's reaction was too heavy-handed and they realized that Moscow was increasingly perceived as the aggressor, the official said.

"Putin said he was perfectly aware of this situation," he added after Sarkozy held lengthy talks with Medvedev and Putin at the Kremlin.

Russia's troops overran their Georgian adversaries, forcing them out of South Ossetia and helping rebels push out Georgian forces in another breakaway region, Abkhazia, before moving further into Georgian territory.

"Medvedev and Putin had a totally disproportionate response," the official said, adding that France made no concessions to the Russians to secure the peace deal.  Continued...